Freight corridor: Left protests, UPA may amend budget

The UPA government is actively considering an amendment to the Railway Budget to accommodate the Left’s demand for extending the Ludhiana-Son Nagar freight corridor to Kolkata. The CPI(M) has threatened to vote against the budget on the issue. The matter was taken up at a UPA meeting yesterday following the Left’s attack on Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav for announcing that the eastern end of the freight corridor would go up to Son Nagar in Bihar.

CPI(M) members have informally told UPA that they would not backtrack from the demand and were ready for a confrontation with the government on the issue. ‘‘This had been conveyed to Finance Minister P Chidambaram and Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee,’’ one CPI(M) MP said. ‘‘Forty-two MPs from West Bengal are accountable to the people. We will not accept the Budget in this form,’’ party leader Nilotpal Basu said.

CPI(M) members were up in arms when Lalu announced in the Lok Sabha that the freight corridor would run only up to Son Nagar. Party MPs Basudeb Acharia, Nilotpal Basu and Roopchand Pal said they had earlier been assured that the freight corridor would go up to Kolkata and they would settle for nothing less. ‘‘What is the economic importance of Son Nagar? If there is no change, we will vote against the Railway Budget,’’ Basu said.

Lalu, however, refuted charges that Bengal had been overlooked. “Bengal has been given nine new trains besides being given extension of three trains,” he said at a post-budget press meet. Asked why the proposed freight corridor had not been extended to Kolkata to link up with ports, he said the corridor was being undertaken on the basis of a RITES survey, which said mining and mineral areas should get prime focus.